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Patent Troll With Good Record in Past Sues Netflix, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Others Over Offline Downloads (arstechnica.com)
Netflix added the ability to download movies and TV episodes for offline viewing in November last year. Music streaming service SoundCloud, and video hosting service Vimeo have had this feature for quite some time, too. But they are all being sued now by a patent troll. From an ArsTechnica report: The plaintiff is a company few have heard of: Blackbird Technologies, a company with no products or assets other than patents. Blackbird's business is to buy up patent rights and file lawsuits over them, a business known colloquially as "patent trolling." Last week, Blackbird (who tells potential clients about being "able to litigate at reduced costs and achieve results") filed lawsuits against Netflix, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Starz, Mubi, and Studio 3 Partners, which owns the Epix TV channel. [...] The patent-holding company, which filed the lawsuits in Delaware federal court, has good reason to hope for success. The '362 patent already has a track record of squeezing settlement cash out of big companies.
This really should NOT be patentable
FTFY
it's simple common sense that one leads logically to the other.
Sorry, that does not apply at the patent office. I'm wonder if they even have computers in their workplace, because everything with 'on the computer' seems to be getting rubber stamp auto-approved. Or maybe they've outsourced the workforce - and patents are now being approved by AI instead.
Yes, I think the existing patent laws are woefully out of date. They need a major overhaul and revising. Big changes need to be made , big changes that won't make some rich powerful people happy, but that are necessary.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The patent sounds like it would cover how the internet generally works for transferring files from servers.
I'm guessing it means they are good at winning cases/getting good settlements.